001Mhm. >> I will now [clears throat] call to order the April 21st, 2026 regular school board meeting of the Stanwood Camano School District Board of Directors. I'm going to apologize in advance my voice is a little bit scratchy today, so bear with me. Uh all board members are present and accounted for. We have Patrick here with us. Alexa is uh absent, but excused. Uh so today we are offering two opportunities for the public to speak. Comments specific to the consent agenda will be allowed prior to the vote on those items. Citizens who have submitted a request to speak either here in person or online prior to the meeting during the public comment section of the agenda will be called upon to make their comments at that time, which is near the end of the meeting.
002Please stand with me for the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right. Thank you. Um you have before you the agenda for the April 21st regular school board meeting. Are there any changes to said agenda? No. No? Seeing none, is there a motion to approve the agenda as written? So moved. Second. It was moved by Director Murray, seconded by Director Olson. All in favor of approving the agenda for the April 21st meeting say I. I. Opposed? That passes unanimously. Uh next up is the uh minutes for the March 17th, 2026 regular school board meeting. Are there any changes or corrections to those minutes? >> [clears throat]
003>> Seeing none, is there a motion to approve the minutes from the March 17th, 2026 meeting? >> So moved. Second. It was moved by Director King, seconded by Director Russell. All those in favor uh sorry, uh all those in favor of approving the minutes from the March 17th regular school board meeting say I. I. Opposed? Passes unanimously again. Uh next up we have the Superintendent's Report. Take it away, Mr. Olson. Great. Thank you, Director Evans. Um first up is the donations. I just want to preface the the donations to say we have over $41,000 in donations this month from our community and just um as always want to thank our community for that and I'd also ask Patrick to hydrate before he begins to read the list. So, Patrick, very good. Take it away. Thank
004you. >> [clears throat] >> Thank you. Once again, Patrick. >> [snorts] >> The Stanwood Camano School District received the following donations. $200 from Wonz Enterprises in support of school supplies for Stanwood Middle School. $487.14 from the Utsalady Booster Club in support of library supplies for Utsalady Elementary School. $357.20 from the Cedarhome Elementary PTO to cover the transportation costs for the Cedarhome Elementary School field trip to the Spark Museum. $150 from Pamela Ann Martin in support of the drama department at Stanwood High School. $311.90 from the Camano Island Friends of the Library to cover the transportation costs for the Utsalady Elementary School field trips to the Camano Island Library. $367.38 from the Stanwood High School Food Aid Booster Club meetings to cover the custodial time for the volleyball Puget Sound Regional events. $2,946.28 from the Stanwood
005Camano Area Area Foundation, SCAFE, to purchase Lego education kits for Twin City Elementary School. $352.50 from the Stanwood Camano Area Foundation, SCAFE, to purchase child children's museum on the go and road labor reading blast kits for Cedarhome Elementary School. $820 from the Elger Bay Elementary PTA to cover the transportation costs for the Elger Bay Elementary School field trip to the Spark Museum. $8,497.50 from the Stanwood Booster Club in support of the student seating concessions at Stanwood High School. $16,135.50 from the Utsalady Elementary Booster Club to cover the costs of the fifth grade outdoor education field trip to Cedar Springs. $1,008.40 from the Stanwood La Conner Tribe of Indians to cover the transportation costs for the Elementary School field trips to the Stanwood La Conner Tribe parking lot project. $1,880 from Terrace for a Cause to
006support the Future Business [music] Leaders of America program at Stanwood High School. A donation of supplies for Twin City Elementary School from the Utsalady Ladies Aid is valued at $1,600. $1,737 from the Stanwood Middle School PTO in support of the Stanwood Middle School music program, Camano. $1,309.70 from the Stanwood High School Food Aid Booster Club to cover transportation costs for the PAC post wrestling championship. >> [clears throat] >> Very good. Thank you, Patrick. I appreciate it and if you um Patrick has aspirations to be a librarian after um going to school, if that doesn't work out, radio talk show host. So, thank you and thank you to the community once again. Next up on the Superintendent's Report is the Shining Star Recognition and uh our shining star tonight is from Port Susan, so Shrey Almanza
007and is going to and that's going to come on up, too, uh to present this this uh shining star. All right. You guys got to talk me into this. Um before I start because I'm not being recognized, I'd like to have George come on up, please. >> [applause] >> So, George, first of all, you came to us in sixth grade. You've been with us for 3 years and I just um a lot of your teachers are here today. I don't think you can recognize many faces in the audience and I'm just going to read what some teachers have said about you and your success over the 3 years you've been with us. In the 3 years that George has been with us, he has worked to overcome many challenges. Even after a day that may
008have had some challenges, he shows up the next day ready to start over. In addition, he is able to have honest conversations about his own improvement. George has come so far when he started here as a sixth grader. He has a great attitude and has really been working hard to make up for being behind. George has come a long way in terms of cooperating with teachers and others. He works extremely hard in my class. I have only had him this year, but after talking to other teachers, I think he is deserving of this award. He has had uh he has made so much progress and is is now participating in sports. George should be proud of his continued hard work to improve over the 3 years at Port Susan. He has shown improvement in taking
009fewer breaks and participating more fully, including using the Chromebook. George has made great gains both in academics and behavior. He is able to regulate his emotions by using the strategies he's been taught. Also, academically, he's more independent and does participate in class. George and I talk every morning a little bit beyond the simple hello. He's kind. Personality is very pleasant. He's polite to other students and myself. And is an easy kid to have in class. He participates in my class activities, tries his best, and is always engaged. We have talked about what he wants to do after high school, his dad's career, and even a bike crash. George is a kid who has made tremendous growth and will continue to grow as he finds success high school as well as in life. So, congratulations. Thank
010you for what you've done this last 3 years and thanks to the support of the teachers and everyone. Do you have anything you want to say? I'm good. You're good? YOU'RE [applause] SURE? >> [applause] >> GEORGE, I DON'T THINK YOU'RE ON THE WHY NOT the hook. We're going to MAKE IT UP. >> [laughter] >> I KNOW YOU'RE IN A HURRY THERE, but we got to get some photos and we have some stuff for you. Do you have family that you want to introduce? Uh that's my family. >> [laughter] >> All right, come on over here. We got some stuff. George is always on my hairy side. Okay, so this first, here's your little star. You get to stick it anywhere you can find to stick it up there. I'll let you do this one. Which
011spot? All right. So, this is for your family so you have the the certificate and then this is a gift from our friends at Heritage Bank, okay? All right, ready for a photo. You want to get a photo? Oh, oh you you're not off the hook. >> [laughter] >> All right. I know. All right, we want George in the center, everyone else around. There we go. All right, ready? 1 2 Perfect. We got the t-shirts. You can have I I want to give you a handshake, George. You got more. All right. Good job, George. CONGRATULATIONS. >> [applause] [clears throat] >> WE'LL CONTINUE WITH PORT Susan uh and their data update. All right, this controls it? >> This controls it. All right. Roll it on the side there. Well, um we're really excited to share what
012we've been working on and how Port Susan's going this year. Um I think over the last 3 years of doing the annual action plan and getting consistent with our departments, um we're starting to see how that consistency is really paying off with our students um and our teachers are all on the same page and it's just exciting to share this with you. Um maybe. There you go. All right. Um a couple words in here. I'm not going to read every slide. There's a lot of information on these slides, um but the equido equit equitable and then I'm closing gaps. I wanted to just add in there that we've really talked about all students. Um in our staff meetings we've talked about reaching every student, um failure's not an option, what can we do to support
013the students as we go through every single class in their day, and we've really narrowed it down and been able to work together um by adding in additional supports throughout the school day uh to help students in their um all six periods. So, what we continue to expect. This is very similar to what I put in the fall. Um students self-assess, they reflect um on progress towards their um standard in all content areas. Our annual action plan, we've broken down every department, so you'll see in these slides, which I'll go through pretty quickly or it'll go a lot longer than it needs to, um is that we have goals for every single content area and they are um purposeful to support reading, writing, and math. Um and we use common assessments in our content areas
014so that we can see that growth throughout the school year. Students are reflecting on their behavior choices. Um we have some data later on that talks about our students and how well that they are doing in making positive behavior choices and we also talked about that behavior and academic academic go hand in hand. Um if their behavior is positive, their academics also is positive. So, with common planning, that's the last thing. Um we've been very um clear that our goal is to try and continue common planning for our departments. Um it helps when you talk about um assessments, evaluating assessments, getting assignments on the same um timeline, talking to one another about what's working well, um and then comparing those overall uh level assessments that we do in our math classrooms. So, our HMH, this
015is our reading curriculum. Um just to highlight a couple things. All the grade levels, um as you are aware, uh you want to move students up into the above, so the blue, the green, and the yellow areas, and you can see from in all grades, our beginning of the year to our middle of the year, uh that gap has closed um and our um students below grade level has shrunk. And so, that's always a goal is is to get those students that are uh far below up to the orange and then everyone else pushes up. Um seventh grade's always that tough year in middle school. Um if you are aware, seventh grade is kind of that in between and they also have had a year of growth for sixth grade in this curriculum. So, we
016also wanted to point out the growth that our seventh graders made this year because that is a huge transition year. They can continue to go in eighth grade and be ready for high school. So, only 7% currently far below grade level according to that HMH middle of the year um assessment. So, we're very proud of that. Uh lots of things in our math classrooms going on. The left side talks about how they support vocabulary and literacy. Again, that common planning. Um all math teachers meet all the time. They've created level level assessments that have that vocabulary that they use on the smarter balanced assessment, the state assessments, um and then they use those common level assessments and I talked about this in the fall, but just to remind um you of what those are is
017there is a lower than grade level question, an on grade level question, and then an above grade level question, and students can pick and choose which one they want to answer. Um some of the feedback on that last one, students are challenging themselves by answering multiple levels per question. So, they're not just picking the lower level and moving on. They're answering that one and then using that to go on grade level and then they're challenging themselves to go above grade [clears throat] level. So, this graph um it kind of looks like our students are rockstars, especially in eighth grade, 100% passing the test, but part of that is is the way the level the assessments are graded. So, if the students are doing the questions for the above grade level, they're going to go above
018the 100% mark. So, this is an average, so that eighth grade 100% just means that on average, with those students that tried the challenging questions and then the students that maybe just did the lower level questions, the average on that uh transformations and congruence standard uh was 100%. But overall, um this is pretty impressive um as far as our our uh progress in each unit and it's um it allows our math teachers to see where the struggles are or uh compare teaching methods and figure out where things went well and where things um we need to work on for next year. I don't see any questions yet, but Uh lots of things from our departments. These are just work samples uh kind of showing how each department supports literacy and math. Uh science using full
019complete sentences, the ACE method, looking at data charts to be able to digest information, um dissect it and look at it even further to support literacy and math both. Um history, same thing. They use the ACEs, which is also used in our language arts curriculum, graphic organizers, timelines, uh a lot of tier one and tier two strategies through the graphic organizers, sentence stems, trying to figure out how do we reach all students and make sure they're successful. Even in our PE class, students are setting goals, uh they're they're testing throughout the year, they're analyzing their information, gaining confidence, um and trying to figure out how do they achieve their next um round of fitness assessments, um and then just day-to-day stuff. They they do their um walking on Wednesdays, they run the mile, um and
020the students are setting goals and and trying to reach progress in PE. Same thing in health. Um smart goals. They talked about at the beginning of the semester, what are they going to work on? Has to be specific, measurable, all those things. Um go throughout the quarter, talk about what they're going to do to make progress. Has to be timely. Um you can see the teachers underlining things that they're um showing that is with the smart goal and and fitting that part of what they're working on. Literacy, language arts classes. Um again, vocabulary practice, uh bell ringers, um looking for informational texts, just all of those things that support the HMH curriculum and then look at how can they uh they share this information with our other departments so that we can collaborate and make
021sure that students are doing similar things throughout all content areas. Computers. Um typing fluency, again, all back to setting goals, um problem solving with coding, just figuring out a way to connect with students so that they can uh continue to challenge and problem solve and become um just lifelong learners. Band. Um I'm sure you know Port Susan has a pretty strong music program um and Jonathan Bletcher does an amazing job he's supporting literacy and math throughout his band classes. You go in there and he's talking about eighth notes and breaking down math assignments right in the middle of his band class which is fun. Okay, so I get to talk about the ways that we engage all of the our our community and the and promote different cultures at our school. One of the really
022neat things to see is that our clubs which are an after school activity we have 124 students that participated in robotics, D&D, cooking, art, writing, Minecraft, chess, and soap box derby and presumably pickleball. Um Uh, we also have 243 students that signed up for at least one sport. And so that's a great way to have our students engaged and included. Also throughout during the day we have leadership and ASB and we've had more than 30 students serve as either an officer or class representative. So students are getting the opportunity to take on leadership roles. In our band and choir we have 22 students in jazz band, 21 in choir, and 155 overall in band. Um, we also do other things to support our students and like we said that we want to support all of
023our students so we do certain supports like peer tutors. We have TAs, new student supports that we give. And we have friendship lunch groups and also we do new student tours to make students all feel like they belong and they're welcome. >> [snorts] >> And one of the things that we're working on you know, closing the achievement gaps and so we wanted to note some of the um sort of highlights of that. And one of the things to note is that 75% of our students have zero behavior instance. And so that's really cool to see. And then the other part is that 93% so have of our students have one or less behavior instance. So um you know, that means they're making really good choices even if they make one you know, mistake or something.
024And then we have 93% of our students that have passed all their classes. So it again there's that correlation between students that are doing well academically but also with their behavior. And thank you. Questions? I have a question but on the healthy AP project one of the students who set the goal to ensure he's doing plyometric exercises four times a week and and the struggle he was having to make that happen. And then there's the student who's not getting up at 6:30. Finding that that five minutes doesn't work because it becomes as you said becomes 10 becomes 30. I taught I disciplined myself to not do that. I'll continue to do this because part I'm not made. I just was struck by that when I read that when the board packet came out. I just
025That's language in health and PE and I think it's just it's powerful. I [clears throat] I remember how you presented your your content and your goals and this is a reflection of that. So I appreciate that. I think one of the things that we also asked the our other middle school and is is how do you guys work on the transition from the eighth grade into into into high school with mathematics and all of those things. Uh, that's a great question. We are actually our math teachers have collaborated with the high school and we've been doing walk-throughs and things along those lines. In addition sharing materials, folders, that type of thing. But for us the confidence in mathematics as you transition from eighth grade to high school is huge. Um I taught math for a
026while and I know that if students struggle with it and they say they don't like it giving them more of the same thing probably isn't going to make them successful in something unless it's approached in different ways. [clears throat] So our math teachers do a lot of and I talked about this before vertical whiteboards, communicating with math, making games out of things. And we're noticing as we walk through the high school classrooms they're doing a lot of the same type of things. Um, math is going in a positive direction for sure in our district with the support of the curriculum and then the collaboration with the teachers for sure. Yeah. Um, when you talked about your leveled assessments do you actually can you see what percentage of the students took like answered the above grade
027level which ones did the below? Well, the teachers would definitely be able to. I I got my information from the gradebook. So I don't I don't have that. >> not it's not just like it doesn't say this many kids answered above. No. Okay. Not in the gradebook. Yeah. Yeah, teachers. >> [laughter] >> No, that's fine. And then just as a note on like those sports are you getting positive feedback? I know like a lot of between our two middle schools we've done united like Spartans united or whatever like are you getting positive feedback from the students of having like one team? I know we have like a joint track team and basketball was combined. Like is that seen like a positive thing or You're probably getting more feedback but I've heard from several parents that
028they really appreciated it because the new league is smaller and so a lot of those schools combined too. And so we're not then we're a united Stanwood team instead of going to Burlington that is now creating a team with the top players and not having success. So it just helps the like the competitive side for the varsity level but then having no cuts at the middle school make it to where everybody can be involved. So it's it's actually been really good. And then just recently with track I've gotten feedback from the coaches that they cuz we're doing pictures separately but they have the students are really wanting to still do the pictures together. So we're going to try to find a way to make that work. So that's really neat that they want both teams
029together in the one photo. Love that. Yeah. You mentioned 243 students doing some kind of athletics. Can you tell me more about that? I would love to. When I was in junior high school I was very fortunate to be one of the very inclusive including uncoordinated, lightweight, short, and an academic type in all sports. And so that was I was just like to know about how that's working here. Yeah, like I said we don't cut at the middle school level. So everyone that tries out has a place on the team. Sixth graders with the league and kind of the way WIAA has changed sixth graders have an opportunity to wrestle and then also do cross country. So 243 sounds a lot for just seventh and eighth but when you add those sixth graders in to
030get that opportunity too that's the accurate number. Um it's it's fun in middle school. It's the time to try it. That's how we advertise it. It's like if you've never touched a basketball now's the time to touch basketball. Not wait till high school. So in middle school it's a lot of trying things for a lot of different ways. The social, the awkward stages and everything. We try and make sure that all students feel like they have a place with our clubs and all that stuff and if sports is something they want to try out they do it. Yeah, we help them we help make them make it happen too. I love seeing the growth in your band and music department over the years and Mr. Bletcher's work. I really appreciate all of you. Any questions?
031All right. Thank you to you both for the Shine Star Award and the presentation. While Principal Lawinger from Stanwood Elementary makes your way up I'm going to go ahead and say to George's family if you if you want to sneak out it's totally fine. And we won't hold it against you at all but >> [laughter] >> I'll I'll leave that open for you if you'd like. Okay. The financial reports can be really interesting. >> [laughter] >> All right. Uh, before George leaves I just want to say the Hicks family is at Stanwood Elementary also and George started in the district at our school and it's been really fun to see the change in George and how much growth he's shown over the last few years. He is now a regular at the War Beach uh
032pickleball courts and he shows up on the weekends sometimes and plays with me and the other adults who are down there and it's just such a it's so much fun to see him come down. He's just respectful and polite and joins right in and it's just been really fun to see his growth. So congratulations. All right, here we go. So I am here tonight to talk about Stanwood Elementary and our progress toward our AAP goals. Not sure if I'm going to hold this right way. Yeah. Uh, we're starting with the foundational early learning. We understand that this is a core pillar in our district strategic plan and what I hope you see tonight in our slides is our focus and attention in making sure that we are that we are really zeroing in on those
033critical skills in the early years. This is a reminder of our AAP student goals. We have a literacy goal around expanding the use of academic vocabulary through written and oral language in math. We have a goal around the increased conceptual understanding of basic math operations and fluency with representation. MTSS we have two goals. One of them is to uh to grow in our literacy and math to strength that achievement gap. And the other one is around areas of attendance and behavior through a personal accountability and monitoring. So, we'll talk a little bit about that. This slide was shown earlier in the year when I was here. It's the ways that we are working together as a faculty, as a team during our PDWs, our Wednesday morning learning, our release days where we work together, collaboration
034days, planning time, things like that. We're focused on academic vocabulary. We're focused on Delta math as a school wide program, our math vocabulary also, our MTSS working with attendance and behavior, making sure that we are consistently meeting with families. We have weekly student hope meetings where we are breaking down the areas where students are struggling and working to remove barriers for families and students. These are the sources of data that inform our work. We of course have our district wide assessment, Mclass dibbles assessment that's a district wide assessment. We also have our Delta math assessments. We do academic vocabulary benchmark assessments for both literacy and math. And in for MTSS for behavior and attendance, we're looking at skyward referrals, behavior plans, attendance tracking, our SST, our student success team referrals and our harassment, intimidation, bullying
035referrals. So, those are looked at weekly with our student hope team every Wednesday. We'll have one of those meetings tomorrow and we're just looking for ways that we can reduce those barriers for students. This was a slide that we had earlier in the year and that's what we're still focusing on. We're hoping to see an increase in student agency and ownership of their learning. We have students tracking their own data as young as kindergarten. Now, they're focused on tracking their attendance and some grade levels they're tracking behavior, oral reading fluency. Some of the upper grades are tracking growth in essay writing and things like that as well. We're hoping to see an increase in students use of academic language across content areas and I see that around the building when I'm walking through classrooms. So,
036that's fun to see and an increase achievement in literacy and math. One of the things that I am most proud of this year at Sam Houston Elementary and I talked to the staff about is our work with our intervention blocks. So, we have 30 minutes of math intervention four times a week. We have 30 minutes of reading intervention four times a week and those are interventions for all students. Every student in first through fifth grade is walking to math. Every student in grades one through five are walking to reading or in a small group or focused instruction in their own room. And it feels good to make sure that all of our students are getting their core instruction that is at on grade level and then they are also getting 30 minutes in literacy and
037math that is focused on specific skills they need to help move their own thinking forward. So, that feels good knowing that we're getting that done this year. The shift to teachers owning the data used to be that our MTSS team and our special ed team kind of owned that data. They would sort the students into groups and push that out to the teachers and recently we have moved that back to the classroom teachers and feel like that is an important move because it allows the teachers to understand the data better, to see to notice more which students are making progress, which students are not making progress and it gives them a more holistic look at where their students are so that they can make shifts during their own instructional core if needed. So, we've taken
038a sample of our Delta math. We have first grade slide, we have a fifth grade slide. What happens in Delta math is that students at the beginning of the year come in and take a readiness test. So, the readiness test basically shows kindergarten end of year kindergarten skills. Did students um master all the skills needed in order to be able to take off in the areas of basic computation, number sense in first grade. So, we have in the middle of the year when we assess the students in January, we still had 48 first graders that understood that were showing mastery of end of year kindergarten standards. Four of those students were students with IEPs. Well, we had 69 first graders at that time of year and so that tells you, I don't know the math,
03917, 18 kids who still needed to fill in some of those gaps in for kindergarten skills in order to move on to first grade skills. So, we're doing these intervention groups. We have those 17, 18 kids working on kindergarten standards to fill those gaps while the other students are moving on to first grade and are doing that during the intervention block. Currently, after several rounds of intervention, two week cycles, we have 61 students now who have met those end of the year kindergarten standards, eight of those students on IEPs. Then what happens in the middle of the year, we test on grade level. So, if an on grade level means end of the first grade year. How many students are already mastering all of those skills? So, middle of the year, which was January, we
040had 20 students in first grade who were already at standard in the area of basic computation and number sense. And currently, after several rounds of intervention, we now have 44 of our first graders and I think we now have 67 first graders. So, 44 of them are already at the end of the year standard, which that is a huge celebration for first grade, really, really big celebration for first grade. So, pretty exciting because some of those concepts actually had not been taught yet in class because we're not at the end of the year yet, but students are moving through that with the intervention blocks because they've shown mastery and have been able to just keep moving. That's the benefit of being able to have that 30 minutes at their own level. In fifth grade, the
041same thing, the beginning of the year we're testing end of fourth grade standards. So, we had 37 students in January that were showing standard for end of fourth grade. We have about 72, 73 fifth graders. So, that's a concern, you know, we still had a bunch of students that did not have all of the pre-skills they needed to be successful in fifth grade math. We currently have 56 of our students who have met now the end of fourth grade standards in fifth grade. If you move over to the right hand side, you'll see January, we had six of our fifth graders who were showing standard who were showing mastery of the end of fifth grade math standards oh, and specifically in the area of basic computation and number sense. And currently, we have 25 students.
042Something fun that happened today, we started new math rotations today and some of these 25 students that are operating at a pretty high level have moved into the fourth grade math intervention classes and have become peer tutors. So, that's a fun thing to see. This is our reading oral fluency. So, here you can see the difference between how all students are performing versus students with IEPs. So, at the begin or beginning of the year oral reading fluency, it looks like we had 54% of our students were at grade level or above and currently middle and when I say currently, this is benchmark data, it's middle of the year, so that's January. So, this is a little bit old data. 58% of our students at grade level or above in the area of oral reading fluency.
043Our students with IEPs at the beginning of the year, 13% of them were at grade level or above. Currently, well, as of January, now we have more, 25% of our students at grade level or above. So, some good growth for our students with IEPs, which we really need to see if we have any hope of shrinking that achievement gap. They need to progress at a faster rate. This is our reading comprehension assessment. This is a district assessment we do. The maze gives students a passage and it gives them options of words that they choose that fits in with that passage. It tests reading comprehension and they need to show understanding of that passage in order to choose the right word. They need to use some textual evidence, that type of thing. At the beginning of
044the year, we had 63% of all students grades two through five showing mastery at grade level or above. Currently, we have 60%. So, shrinking some of that below and um well below grade level. Then our students with IEPs, we had 24% of our students at grade level or above. We currently have 31% of our students at grade level or above. I want to take just a brief minute to talk about community engagement culture at Sammamish Elementary. Our PTO year after year tries really hard to push in as many family events as we possibly can. We typically have multiple going a month and movie nights, potluck nights, math nights, STEM nights, science science fair, book fairs, everything we can think of to bring the family in. These pictures are from last week. Half of our school
045went to the Woodland Park Zoo. Three grade levels all went on the same day. We had 147 volunteers join us that day and we're pretty proud of that because that is the way that we get families to connect with us and feel comfortable being part of our team and seeing, you know, the joy and what being involved in your child's education can bring to the students. And so we're just pretty proud of that and the number of volunteers that we have every year that show up big at Sammamish Elementary. So that, I believe. This is just the what we continue to hope to see. We hope to see students continue to take agency and ownership of their learning. We hope to continue to see their use of academic language growing, increase in achievement and literacy
046and math, their strong attendance and family participation and partnerships with us school. And that's all I have for you. Any questions? Thank you. I I sorry, I missed your your previous presentation cuz I was not here that night. I'm kind of curious because you gave us data in a slightly different format than we've received before and that's with the IEPs being referenced quite a bit throughout your your presentation. Is there is there a specific reason for that type of presentation and as to why and then also you raised the question to to put the data into context is how many students do you have on IEPs and such? The reason why we presented the data that way is because we've been talking quite a bit at school and our shift in the way we're doing
047our intervention blocks have really we have been focusing on different groups within the school. So we've been blending our special education, our MTSS departments and our gen ed teachers and blending those intervention groups so that students who are on IEPs, without IEPs, being served by title one or lap or not may all be within the same group. It just depends on what skill they needed. So one is a that because that's a focus of this year, but the other is because when I showed up last time I already had benchmark data and this time I have the same benchmark data. We have not taken a new benchmark assessment and so showing that data again, there wouldn't be growth to show. But our students who are on IEPs were able to progress monitor them every two
048weeks and can show the rate that they're growing because what we're hoping to see is that they're growing at a faster rate because we need to close the achievement gap. So the reason So the reason for that is because we kind of changed the focus of the way we do our interventions and because that is new data that we have. So we wouldn't be representing the same data. I I think I heard you correctly. Your core instruction time is grade level for math. Correct. >> And during the the 30-minute intervention time is lacking skills lacking some grade level skills and mentioned advanced skills for students who are pushing forward. So it's students are getting what they need. Is it Are you guys calling it WIN time? We don't call it WIN time. We just call
049it our intervention block. Yeah, but it's the same thing. Yes. So all students get their full core intervention or full core academic time. We don't pull students during core academics in the area of literacy or math. They all stay in their home room for that. And then in addition to that they have 30 minutes of literacy and 30 minutes of math at their own level. And you're pushing students on IEPs into core instruction so they're receiving that grade level skills. All of it. Yes. I have a question. Yeah, I did. So on the reading oral fluency, um the students with IEPs, it looks like there wasn't a whole lot of movement. Mhm. Um what are what are you guys finding? Um Are there ways that we can increase those those supports to maybe move that
050group up? Mhm. And what we find is that we show more growth at the primary grade levels when the phonics instruction and phonemic awareness instruction is happening. Um and they are doing lots of repetitive reading. So we're finding that we show more growth in the primary grades and when they get up to the fourth and fifth they're not showing as much growth in the area um for reading fluency. Uh but uh our resource room is has really been focusing on students taking ownership of their own data. They're tracking their own data. They're talking about the goal setting um every day before they read a passage. Um this is what you read last time. How many words per minute do you think you can do at this time? What kind of strategy are you going to
051use to go through the text? And they're doing that pretty consistently and so we're hoping that we're going to start seeing some change there. More [clears throat] or less the same thing. Looking at both the oral reading fluency and the reading comprehension. And with the data specifically students IEPs Mhm. Um roughly 50% in all four places [snorts] are they showing improvement in one? Uh are well below grade level. Do you have any thoughts about what external factors may be causing that outcome? So some of what we notice in the the maze test, it's a you know, it's a passage and so background information can sometimes be We do know that academic vocabulary really gets in the way and we have noticed that across all content areas when we look at our SBA data, we can
052tell that our students have struggled with vocabulary use and you know, we have we are near 40% free and reduced in our school and it is a gross overstatement to say that students have come from low income or coming from low language homes, but statistically there are they are uh more students in that population that are coming from lower language homes just due to experiences that they have been able to take part in with preschools and outside activities and things like that. So we're really trying to push that academic vocabulary across all content areas of the school. And with the radical statement, but but I could find for transitional kindergarten that's going to go the wrong direction. So can you talk more about that? Yeah. Um yeah, so we all know the importance of early
053education. Tonight one of our kindergarten teachers is actually presenting for E-CAP and so we do have a strong partnership over there with E-CAP and with the community resource center and trying to make sure that we are identifying students early. Our we get to be one of the schools that house the developmental preschool and we work really closely with the Birth to Five program to identify students as early as we can, try to get them into that program so that we know who they are, get them on their IEP long before they get to kindergarten and start getting some of those services met, especially in the area of like speech and fine motor and things that can really change their outcome in kindergarten. >> [snorts] >> When you talk about excuse me, your intervention blocks like
054your walk to math and walk to are those specifically held across individual grade bands or do you go like do they span other grade bands like do mix them together? That's a good question. So some of them are I believe first grade is on their own. Yeah. Like our four five is a grade band and so those students can go um down up and then we have students that are now operating more at the sixth grade readiness and then our third and fourth. So we have scheduled in our building schedule, we have created grade bands so that students can move back and forth if needed like two three four five, but first grade is set and foundational early learning and that we have them on their own. Thank you. That it? Thank you. Thanks for
055allowing her Thank you. report. Appreciate it. Next up on the superintendent's report is the February financial report by New Floyd. Good evening. Um we are halfway through the fiscal year with the February report. Enrollment annual average FTE was 4,646 in February, about 19 below budget and two below last month's annual average. Uh state apportionment revenues were paid at 9% for a total of 48.5% for the year. Uh both payroll and non-salary MSOC costs are lower than this time last year as a percent of the budget. Um the mayor Thank you. Uh the manager's report reflects 11% remaining after expenditures and encumbrances through February. And our fund February fund balance is about $6 million and anticipated decline from the prior month. We expect another decline in March and and then an increase due to tax collections
056in April. Uh the object summary salaries and benefits are in line with expectations. M&S or non-salary costs are still running lower than expected with a catch-up anticipated in March and April with some running start and risk pool payments due at that time. Uh fund balance status reports again general fund reflects that $6 million fund balance as previously discussed. The other funds including capital, debt service and ASB are little changed from the prior month so I will go through those fairly quickly. Uh transportation vehicle fund balance has decreased due to the purchase of buses that we were anticipating would happen here in the spring and there is a remaining balance of $210,000. We have ordered three small buses to arrive in the fall based on your prior authorization and we expect a revised depreciation allocation from
057the state to come through. The amount to come through around the end of April for receipt in August. Based on that we are hoping that we'll be able to order some more buses. And then this is our budget capacity report. It reflects adjustments for February most of which are offsetting revenues. And then our food service budget variance was revised for an additional month and is similar compared to last year at this time. Participation variance is also similar to last month. That's all I have for the February report. Any questions? How are you coming on getting ASB to spend some money? Yes. So as we've talked about before they because the budget they're a little bit limited with the budget and where we have budgeted for the current fiscal year we're really pushing that increase in
058capacity for spending in the next budget cycle. For 2026-2027. When do they do that? When do they create their budget for that? Uh they are working currently and I anticipate having a meeting with them at some point here in the spring as they continue on with that to kind of um you know give them some tips on either ways to spend or encouraging them to spend a little bit more on with the funds that they have so they can spend it on the students that are in the in the school now. Ruth I'm looking at the manager's report and I'm seeing some pretty hefty balances in some programs, some schools um and some categorical. What's the carryover capacity for let's say a principal to carry over building M&S money from 2025-2026 to 2026-2027. Are they
059capped at the fund balance for the system as a whole or >> [cough] >> can they carry over 50%? Well well what you're seeing here in the principal budgets are two types of money. I think of it as two types of money. One is the allocation that we give them at the beginning of the year based on their enrollment and that is capped for carryover at 10% up to 10%. Okay. And then the other type of funds that may that are in here are donations and some grants and things like that. So that we do not cap. We allow them for the first year to carry that full amount over. So it is probably a combination of staff. That helps because I'm I'm just as a teacher in one of those buildings and I thought
060that was M&S money [clears throat] and I didn't feel I don't have paper or I don't have pencils or capacity to buy those I'd be upset. So you're what I'm hearing you say is that some of that capacity is really tied to a specific grant or other allocation so that's what you're saying. Correct. Thank you. Kim, there's no more questions on the financial report we'll move into the reduced education program plan presentation that Ruth will uh work through but um as this presentation is introduced and and started by Ruth um we know that it and the accompanying resolution contains a reduction of resources and staff for the 2026-2027 school year. This is challenging and is our responsibility uh to do that the state um just just talk about the fact that the state funding model
061which is structurally broken continues to slide backwards and provides a wider gap for resources and staff and allocations um for our district and other districts across the state. And the gap is also widening in the state's obligation to amply fund public education. So um as a frame for that Ruth uh go ahead. Thank you. Thank you. Uh tonight we are requesting approval from the board to authorize a reduced educational program as part of the consent agenda. This is a plan and there will likely be adjustments throughout the spring and summer budget development process. Uh I want to thank everyone who has participated in the planning conversations. This is a difficult process and we appreciate the support from the board, staff and community. >> [clears throat] >> First I'd like to talk a little bit about
062legislative impacts. As you may know there are [clears throat] a couple of types of funding that the state provides us. One is called maintenance level funding and that's kind of to keep us at status quo. And uh the state provided a 2.6% inflationary factor on funded salaries and M&S uh non-salary costs which as we know is not what it costs to run the district. Therefore a portion of the cost ends up being funded by local and federal dollars. Uh special education and transportation received the same similar inflationary adjustments. Uh transition to kindergarten is not considered basic education by the state and so maintenance level funding is not required but they do provide the 2.6% in IPD um on the seats that are funded. Uh which brings me to the statewide reductions to the transition to
063kindergarten program higher than we originally anticipated when we met during the study session. Uh we are awarded 20 slots which is less than half of this year's allocation. Uh the K-12 education on the left of the screen the K-12 education's share of the state's budget was 51.6% in the 2019 to 21 biennium and the first year of this biennium 2025 to 2027 the share of the total state budget is 43.2%. A reduction from five years five or six years ago. I have heard though also that with the second year of the biennium that that 43% is actually decreasing a bit as well because of the additional cuts they made this year that you can see on the right part of your screen. I do not have a dollar amount for the transportation vehicle depreciation allocation.
064That will be reduced. We just don't know how much yet and I mentioned earlier that we expect to have a number at the end of April. This is a picture of how we are where the resources that we receive to fund our budget. Uh this as I mentioned before there is a structural gap in the funding of K-12 education statewide. It's not just Stanwood Camano. The gap between our anticipated revenues versus expenditures next year is estimated at about $4.2 million. Uh we recommend using 1.5 million of fund balance for a total reduction of 2.7 million. Here are some examples of how the state funding imbalance presents itself for our district. I'll highlight a couple of them. You'll see utilities and insurance we receive about $2 million for those line items and we spend approximately almost
065$2.6 million. Special education, uh we receive from the state about 14.5 million and we spend uh in 24-25 about 17.9 million. Uh the these are the I'll go through uh the reductions at a summary level. Uh although we make every effort to keep reductions away from the classroom, we know there will be service and support impacts to staff, students, and the community. Uh district office department budgets are being reduced about $116,000. School building budgets about 30,000. Uh teaching and learning, we're realigning some categorical funding, uh which saves about $15,000. Uh these are the anticipated uh reduced positions and we hope that retirements and resignations will offset a portion of this, uh but a reduction in force is likely, uh unless more retirements occur in the coming days. And similarly with classified staff, we expect reduced
066positions um will offset some temporary hours uh that won't continue including uh retirements and resignations to offset some of that as well. >> [sighs] >> Thank you for your time. I'm happy to answer any questions. I can. Any questions? Have we checked the couch for loose change? All right. Yes. Yes, unfortunately. And the couch is empty. Thank you. Thank you, Ruth. Next up is the April enrollment report. Uh quick snapshot of the enrollment for um April shows five four excuse me, 4,593 FTE down 30 from March. Uh which is a larger decline last year, which was nine last year the decline uh in the March or in April report. The annual average annual FTE uh for this month is 4,636 uh students off about 29 FTE from budget budget enrollment and down 21 from last
067year's uh April annual average. So, 21 off of last year's this time last year. And um the the trend continues to um to happen across the state across across the county as well. We're realizing um the birth rate impact as well as um some options for for schooling as well. So, um we'll continue to update you on the enrollment. That's April enrollment report. Questions on that? Yeah, nothing about that, too. So, the last thing that's not on the uh superintendent's report, but I definitely wanted to make sure I mentioned this evening uh is to introduce Tony Smith, who's here with us uh this evening. Tony is the new principal for Cedarhome Elementary beginning July 1. Tony has 20 years experience uh in public ed, 17 more than 20 years experience in public ed, far more,
068right, Tony? Uh 17 as a principal, a master's degree uh in educational leadership, and is currently a director of MTSS in Snohomish in the Snohomish School District. Um throughout his career, Tony's focused on building strong school culture uh where students and staff feel connected, supported, and challenged to achieve at high levels. His leadership and experience includes uh guiding instructional improvement, supporting collaborative teacher teams through uh PLCs, and strengthening systems of academics so every student can succeed, which fits well with our district promise. So, I'd like to uh before I um introduce Tony and we have something for Tony, just want to publicly say thank you to Colleen Keller as the interim uh principal at Cedarhome Elementary this year just for uh the great work she's done stepping in for a year and uh leading that
069school. So, Tony, uh welcome to the district officially, and Christine has uh some gear from the staff at uh at Cedarhome that um you'll be wearing frequently and often soon, I think. So, WELCOME, TONY. >> [applause] >> GREAT TIME TO BE HERE. THANK YOU. GREAT. THANKS, TONY. That is superintendent's report. All right. Thank you very much. >> [sighs] >> We will now move on to the uh consent agenda. Anyone in attendance may speak to the items contained in the consent agenda, and only those items contained in the consent agenda um at this time. Uh first up, are there any board members that wish to pull any items from the consent agenda for discussion? I think it would be appropriate to pull the resolution reduce education plan and vote on that separately um because of an
070opportunity to to have a discussion um on it. Okay, sure. Anybody else? Is there anybody in the audience that would like to speak on anything uh any of the consent agenda items? I guess one Well, any of the items. Who's needing? No? All right. So, is there a motion to approve the consent agenda items 1 through 2 and then 4 through 14? So moved. Second. Okay, that has been moved by Director Murray, seconded by Director Olsen. All in favor of approving consent agenda items 1 through 2 and 4 through 14, say aye. Aye. Opposed? Uh passes unanimously. Um so, >> [clears throat] >> would you like to what uh you would like? >> it it I know it may not seem like regular protocol because you would normally would pass something like that in the
071consent agenda, but I feel that this is they always told me that there would be difficult decisions to make as a board member um and this is one of those difficult decisions to be made to keep our district financially solvent. Um but we're also deeply aware that there are people on the other sides of this. That when we talk about staff reductions and such. And so, I wanted the opportunity to say that um as a board member that this is extremely difficult. It's not something we want to do and something that we really would like to find other alternatives for. And basically, it comes down to the way the state finances and funds education. So, thank you for that opportunity. If anybody else would like to say anything else. It just seems like since COVID,
072especially, every district in this state has had this resolution on their spring or winter agendas. And that's a tragedy. It's a it's the fault of our state state legislature. I'll continue to to pound that because they really just said, "We're done with the theory. Here's the funding model. Deal with it." They've never addressed it since. And it's real people and students who will have feel the negative impact of that. You know, it just it it irritates me to no end. Um and I and I hate that we have to have this vote. And it's not fair for us local people to have to burden that um because the state legislature isn't doing their job. So, as the ledge rep, I would like to at least point out that this is an opportunity, no matter whether
073you're a parent, a staff member, a classmate, anyone who is willing to have those conversations with state legislative leaders, that is super important. They need to hear from us. They need to hear what their decisions what those ramifications are to our students, to our community, and everything. I would just highlight um to Director Russell's comment earlier about the couch cushions. Uh I would like to give credit to Ruth and her department. Like, I feel like we've shaken the couch uh um not just the cushions, but the entire the entire living room uh upside down trying to find and and to do the work um to make this uh I don't want to say uh painless, but as least impactful as possible. And so, I commend you for your hard work um even though it's still
074not a great picture, but I think we're in a better spot than we could be. Your team did a really great job this year minimizing our fund balance usage. Um to put us in a better spot that we had fund balance for next year. So, I genuinely appreciate the hard work of your department. So. So, this is the team effort. Yeah. Anyone else? So, do we need to move this back into a a motion? Yeah, do we need to do that again? Yeah. I think we did. I think we did. Who else? Hasn't yet? Oh. Yeah. No? Okay. So, is there a motion to approve consent agenda item number three? So moved. Second. All right. So, that has been moved by Director Russell, seconded by Director King. All in favor of approving consent agenda item
075number three, say I. I. I. Opposed? Uh that passes unanimously. Uh okay. >> [gasps] >> So, now we move on to public comments. >> [clears throat] >> Uh we have two requests for public comment today. Um as a matter of order, because this is a board's business meeting, the board is providing an opportunity for the public to comment, but the board does not create discussion on those comments within the meeting as they are not part of the agenda. Comments will be followed up on after the meeting if it is appropriate. When it is your turn to comment, you will um please come to the podium. Please make sure you speak directly into the microphone. It's kind of hard to hear in the back. Um state your name. You will have 3 minutes uh to speak.
076Uh there is a little timer, a little pop-up. Yellow means you have 1 minute left. Red means your time is up. Um our first commenter is Michelle Friedman. Hello. Um I'm here today to express my concern regarding the elimination of the elementary student support advocate. For the past 5 years, our elementary advocate has provided families with resources for the wrap-around services they need for student success. Prior to this, teachers, secretaries, and other district employees worked to fill the gaps. We did it all. We gave clothing from school operations school bell, food for spring break, and even got a family a bed because the air mattress they were sleeping on went flat and grew mold. We kept folders of contact information for various community resources at the ready for those in need. And honestly, it has
077been a great relief to have someone dedicated to helping our families full-time. The case load for the elementary advocate is currently 306 families. Having continuity from one year to the next and from school to school has been imperative as students in as students in need have navigated life's difficult times. I know one of our students in our district who has been on the advocate's case load for 4 years. He was in three of our elementaries and is now in middle school. His home life hasn't been easy, but he knew he could count on our advocate to have his back throughout his journey. And I am happy to say that this child is now doing really well, a success of our village. With the elimination of the position, who is going to fill the void left
078behind? We know that early intervention and support for those at risk is important for future success. Eliminating that support from our youngest students doesn't make sense. Our promise is we will empower every student. This is what the student support advocate does. I realize obviously money is an issue, but I curious if grants or other funding sources were explored before this decision was made. And if not, I implore you to find some funding to continue to support some of our most vulnerable families. Thank you. Thank you. Uh apparently I lied and we don't have a timer. We don't have a timer. Okay. So, sorry. Generally, we have a timer. Uh all right. Our next up is Hal Schreiber. My name is Hal Schreiber and I live in the school district. I couldn't believe what you did
079at the last board meeting in March. I would encourage you to follow your policies, parliamentary procedures, Robert's Rules of Order, the Washington State School Directors Association, WASDA as you call it, puts out a nice little booklet to help you with parliamentary procedures and I would encourage you to get a free copy and read it. At the last meeting, you failed to allow the public to comment before you voted on item number four, which had been pulled and voted on separately. I had to go back and watch meeting again to be sure you did what I thought you did. And I think we just did it again tonight because you voted on one through whatever and we didn't go back and vote or not vote allow the public to comment on number three on the consent
080agenda, which I wanted to address. >> [clears throat] >> First of all, I wanted to commend Superintendent O'Donnell and the staff for their priorities [clears throat] on the first five bullets on the cover memo there. Um but I wanted to address item number three under the estimated 26-27 budget impacts that you listed. Um I think it might be time to sit down with the teachers union and or others to give back part of the raises that they have coming so that we would not have to lay off a number teachers and employees. When I was teaching at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center and the International Law Enforcement Academy, we utilized several national leadership programs from well-known suppliers that had written books and programs on leadership. I won't mention their names because you probably easily
081recognize them. But when the economy took a nose dive, the way each company handled the situations spoke volumes to me. The first well-known company laid off a lot of their employees and the executives kept their pay, their huge salaries. The other company kept all of their employees while the executives of the company took huge pay cuts. And that just I would encourage everyone to make sure that your actions match your talk. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Now we will move on to uh school board discussion. So, our first topic that we have is a first reading of revised policy 5404, family medical and maternity leave. Uh any thoughts, questions? Nope, I lied. Uh revised board policy 3141, hm, admission of non-resident students. And it is a second first reading. Any questions or concerns on
082that? No? Do we have a consensus to move that to a second reading? Yes? Yes. All right. Next up, we have a first reading of revised board policy 3520, student fi- fees, fines, and or charges. Any thoughts, questions, concerns on that? No? Is there a consensus to move that to a second reading? Yes. Yes. Yes. Excellent. Uh next up, we have a student uh student representative reports. Uh that is Patrick. Take it away, sir. >> [clears throat] >> I'm on a hold to see if they're ready, but um So, personally, our school I feel trip to the Museum of Pop Culture was a great success with the majority of the school attending. It was a great opportunity to explore twice over common pop culture interests as well as having an enjoyable time of recreation on
083our last school day before spring break. In the days following our field trip, we had our round table conferences, which also had a positive turnout. Both for families and the students. The week leading up to spring break was also our third third spirit week. And that Thursday marked the conclusion of reading session six and thus the third quarter. Our ASB Council has had its most recent meeting on Thursday of last week, in which we held a vote to purchase an air hockey table to house in the commons for student student use. The consensus was to vote to purchase. We also briefly began to plan out our annual spring social. We had determined that it will be held on the evening of Friday, May 22nd. We plan to serve barbecue for the attendees. Coming up in
084early May, we have our smarter balance testing days for the ELA, mathematics, and science assessments. We'll be administering students who need to take them to be on track for graduation. Our bell schedule will not be modified. The students will go to room 134 to test during the period respective to the content area of the assessments. Lastly, we are putting the finishing touches on our video for the accreditation presentation in May. The video will also be made available on our Olympic View High School website. And following this is the Port Susan Middle School students reports as it was delivered to me. Athletics. We have started fourth season sports. This year, we have a combined track team between Port Susan and Sequim Middle School. Boys soccer has two teams this year, a JV and varsity. Their first
085game will be next week. Um for clubs, there's Minecraft Club, which does in person and so forth, and so forth. Our currently available and all the pickleball club can come to Sequim. We have fifth grader tours and ASB elections on May 1st. We have our PTO Color Wars fundraiser on May 8th. And on May 29th, we have an after school activity. Um I could uh H and H growth has had significant growth from the beginning of the year to now. And finally, SBA testing will begin on the ninth. Um and I didn't plan this, but I just wanted to say that I find it pretty disheartening to see the lack of support education is getting, especially from a state that claims to care so much about their And it's just a hard thing to see,
086and I think that it's a good sign when a society starts to dis our education and the cast system. Agreed. Thank you very much. All director reports on business conducted uh it's Director Russell? Uh we attended a um as it was published, we attended a WASDA event last night. One of my key takeaways is community engagement and how we how do we explore ways to have more community stakeholder um engagement with the writing decisions to be made in the district. So, I look forward to that and that. I also deeply appreciated your comment on um education because I honestly have to tell you I'm I'm pretty choked up because I think we failed. And I I say it as a collective. So, I'm sorry to all of you. Um that is not fair to you
087guys to be the end result of that. And we all feel a little bit like we're going through the motions as a senior Um I also attended the regional directors event in Arlington, and I had similar takeaway As for me, the most ironic though was uh an area representative of the legislature sat down across from at our table across from me and next to Director Russell. And I wanted to ask a question, but we're having a conversation and then he's gone. Made an appearance and left. And that is really an analogy for how they operate >> [snorts] >> in supporting education. Make an appearance and leave. And don't do the work that needs to be done. We didn't have a chance for conversation to really begin to press that engagement opportunity to say, "What can
088we do to help you convince your colleagues that what you're doing is failing kids?" Couldn't do that. Didn't make an appearance. Did he finish his dinner? Disheartening. I was also at the event um last night, and took similar um the the presentation, but also the discussion. There was some discussion also around how um not just engaging with our community, but also um engaging and working together to better show up um at the legislative level, and that's bringing legislators back to the district to actually let them see firsthand what their decisions are doing to our districts and and collaborating with other local districts close to us in proximity, um which I thought would be a really good idea. And so, looking forward to hopefully doing a little bit more in that area. I'm also looking forward
089to our tour on Thursday um with the academic advisory. Well, on the 19th of March, it's a long time since the last board meeting. Um we had the academic advisory committee team meet, and and also on the uh 24th of March combined uh um budget and facilities committee meeting. Both of them there was a pretty good participation in the community. That was good. And also at the uh regional meeting, the the DA one, which is up in about Canadian border up through the town of Camano Islands, um that all the districts there were well represented. And actually, that legislator is for our district uh and he was actually there long enough to get a lot of digs in, you might say. You know, you know, um the unfunded mandates, the horrible cutback on the transitional
090kindergarten, etc. Actually got a lot of back and forth there. And I was wondering if he left early because of the um atmosphere that we were creating. So, it's good to have him there. Thank you. Uh I was unable to attend last week just for personal family reasons, um but uh was listening to some of the recaps from you guys, and it seemed like it was a really good time. Um I did get some emails um from other uh directors in our region today. Um so, uh which was very interesting. Uh they reached out on on a couple of things. I haven't had a chance to like fully digest on what their emails are are asking me for, so but I'll circle back on those. You you were published on the back of one of
091the sheets that was Oh, okay. I was like, "Why did I get so many emails today?" >> [laughter] >> And everybody was strongly encouraged to reach out to their representation. >> really reached out. They really reached out. >> [laughter] >> But sorry, probably should have given you a heads-up. Yeah, I was like, "Why do I have so many emails today? Like, what's even happening?" That makes me thank you, and I will I will I will respond to those emails. I was like, "Where did Like, what happened?" It's like somebody like apparently did it. Like, published us without me out. Um I am uh I was I was I appreciate that. I think uh you know, uh we just come off of spring break. Uh well, it was a hard uh there was a there was
092a man, a really unfortunate event over spring break, but getting back into school and kind of finishing up the the last of the year. I know we got, you know, the the the wrestling on. We're getting into SBA testing, so um I appreciate $41,000 in donations from our community is amazing. Um you guys help us uh keep keep everything going and keeping our kids supported, so I genuinely uh appreciate that. That couldn't come at a better time. Um just know that we don't like voting I on that reduced plan any more than you like hearing us say it, so that is uh that's all I got. It's If you need your If you need email addresses or phone numbers for your local legislators, let me know. We're happy to share those with you uh to
093to send out. Yeah. Thank you. My my comments are still accurate from the beginning of Bruce's uh presentation and have been reiterated by this board, so I appreciate that. Um I want to do I want to say uh April is volunteer appreciation month, and just to say thank you to all the volunteers, some of which are sitting in this room tonight. We have over a thousand volunteers that are cleared to serve in our schools. I think evidence of that was at the Stanwood Elementary field trip to the to the zoo with 143 Amazing. volunteers going. That's um that's substantial. So, just a thank you to the community. I think it speaks volumes about this community and and how they um support and value our public schools. And so, thank you for that. Uh I believe
094that with all of that, uh we can now adjourn our meeting.